


You Are What You Beat

by BigScaryDinos



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Multi, Ramsay is his own warning, Torture, flaying...duh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 21:05:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3704797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigScaryDinos/pseuds/BigScaryDinos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theon asks why. Ramsay gives him an answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are What You Beat

 

It was times like this Ramsay was lost in thought. He enjoyed what he did, the scrap of steel on bone, the scream of pain tearing from his most valued hostage, the scent of iron wafting through the air. He got lost in it sometimes - like now. 

 

He barely heard the guttural pleas that were torn from Theon, barking and whimpering and begging. His own mind somewhere off, thinking of a thousand things and nothing all at once. He had once heard of some kind of murmurer from Asshai who could will himself into a trance so deep no man could pull him out. Some men took knives and torches to him. Some practically rode him down in the street, some beat him near death - yet he was the only one who could pull himself from his mind. Ramsay understood how that could be. Blood was the only thing that could lull him into the state he was in now. It was soothing.

 

His hands worked, his mind enjoyed, his heart sang in his chest - and he thought. He remembered. He remembered a thousand hunts, a thousand bodies, more times than he could count he had done this. Each time was different. Each time he savored it. Sometimes they screamed, sometimes they cried, sometimes they pissed themselves, sometimes they tried to bribe him or curse him or fuck him or kill him. Everyone was different and yet they were all the same. Men, women, children. Everyone died once he stripped them bare. Each heart stopped. All eyes closed once and for all. The words they said to prevent such a thing from happening changed, but only slightly.

 

“Why are you doing this?”

 

“Why not?”

 

Theon gasped and sputtered. He threw his head back and bared his throat, surrendering it seemed. When Ramsay’s fingers brushed the exposed flesh his head snapped forward so quickly the pop of bones was audible.His eyes were wide and horror shone in the glassy orbs.

 

“Why?” He barked, foamy blood dripping through his broken lips. Ramsay stopped for a second, walked a few feet backwards. The room was utterly quiet save the sound of harsh gasps for air and boots whispering on stone.

 

Why. He thought. Why did he do this. His brother inched into his mind. His poor dead brother. His brother, rotting underground with his bloated stomach and purple tongue. His brother  who had taught him things, all kinds of things. The only one he had really known, the one he had killed, just like the rest.

 

He thought of horses, whining in the sunrise as he sat astride a chestnut mare, trotting beside Domeric. He thought of what his brother told him one day, the best lesson he had ever been taught. The one that made everything click into his mind.

 

“Brother, do you know our sigil?”

 

“The flayed man.”

 

“Yes, do you know why we took the flayed man?” His voice sweet, coated in sugar and thickened like honey.  He rode a larger horse, one that befit a lord’s true born son. He was two heads taller than his younger brother, although on foot Ramsay was the one just a bit taller. Here on his horse he had to look up to his brother. It irked him to no end and so he was already tired of games before they had left the Dreadfort that morning. With a quiver of arrows slung across his back he had half a mind to shoot his brother through the throat and blame some thieves. He restrained him, but just barely.

 

  
“Father says a flayed man holds no secrets.” Domeric’s hand stroked his chin, touching on the hair that rested beneath his lip. Light brown and trimmed he rubbed his jaw as he thought about his brother’s reply.  Ramsay’s own hand reached for his own jaw, feeling the stubble that covered it and the scratches underneath. A serving girl had tried to fight back when he had taken her just a fortnight past. She should have been honored that the not-yet-notorious Bastard of Bolton would chose to give her a bastard of her own. She struggled instead, her fingers had found purchase on his face. He had won in the end, and she had lost those fingers that caused the minor wounds. If his seed did quicken inside her that child would be a fighter until its own gruesome end.

 

“That is true, but there is more to it than that. We could have chosen a heart, a bloody knife, anything really. A bare heart can show openness, we can strip you down to the very core. A bloody knife can strike fear into those that oppose us. But we chose the man. Why?”

 

And here Theon screamed _why._ _Why, oh gods, why did you do this. What have I done? I didn’t mean it. The boys are still alive. I never meant to kill them, only scare them, but they ran off. Please just cut it off. Please just take it._

 

He spit in agony as Ramsay told his story, his fingers working deftly to strip skin from the ring finger before him. Ramsay, repeating the words that his brother had told him so long ago and recalling faintly a serving wench with golden hair and six fingers where there used to be ten.

 

“I’m telling you why, don’t you listen. And you should call me 'my lord' if you want to keep your tongue. I call you my Prince don’t I?” He tossed his head back, long matted dark hair thrown back over his bulky shoulders. “Now, do you know why we took the flayed man over anything else?”

 

Blind with pain, bound Theon could only snap his head back and forth. His remaining teeth chewed the inside of his  mouth as Ramsay peeled away a long spiral of skin. He had been trying to perfect this new method of flaying fingers for months and he had finally mastered the cut. When done properly the skin would unravel, as if he were peeling an apple with a curved blade.

 

“Do you see, we flay men. And men hold dominion over all the other beasts. Men, well we’re not afraid of any animal. We hunt lions and wolves. We feast on stags and fish.  We tame bears and kill them for sport. We can ride dragons. We can shoot birds from the sky or teach them to work for us. We use dogs to our gain. We smash spiders under our thumbs. Boars, lizards, swans, ducks, geese, turtles, it makes no matter. We can throw our nets into the sea and drag up anything living there and slice it into shreds. We wield axes, use fists, stomp plants into the dirt. We, we men are the strong ones.”

 

Theon’s guttural scream woke half the Dreadfort as Ramsay wretched the last bits of skin from muscle. His breathing hitched and stopped for a few moments, only to resume shrilly gasping and screaming. The fresh red of raw muscle stood out, pulsing - surrounding by soft bits of pink flesh from the surrounding fingers.

 

“And, we men - the strongest of the men are the ones who can kill the others. If we can strip our friends bare, lay out every inch of them, what do you think we can do to the things beneath us?” Ramsay’s thick lips split into a grin, displaying every one of his imperfect teeth. As a child he had been no stranger to beatings; his own teeth cracked in places, missing in others. A horrendous thing to see, but when you are consumed in fire water is the only thing that matters. So Theon begs.

 

“Cut it off, please, please - please.” His mouth trembles as he struggles to beg. His eyes watering, his chest heaving.

 

“Always remember, my _Prince_ , you might own the waters to splash in, but in the end the men are who determines your fate. You live only because we don’t care. Only because we have better things to do. If you think the might of a Kraken is worth anything, compare it to the power of the man who does the flaying.”

  
Theon lurched against his bonds, his wrists red, raw. Rivers of blood flowed down his flayed hand to travel down his wrist. Ramsay watched for a few moments, thinking back to the hunt with his brother. He thought of the arrows, notched in his bow as he took down a stag prancing through the trees. He thought of the smile that cracked his brother’s face when they brought the prize back. They feasted very well that night. Hunting was marvelous, he thought for a moment. As Theon’s begging intensified, his pleas to just _cut the fucking thing off already my lord, please cut off my fucking finger please make it stop_ \- Ramsay supposed fishing was even better.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Well this is different? Never wrote anything other than Modern AU stuff, so for once something somewhat cannon? Enjoy my late night ramblings.


End file.
